


Succour

by Renne



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: F/M, Military, One Shot, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was getting easier to imagine her doing things he'd never seen her do, but harder to remember her face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Succour

He dreamt of her, of course. He would have gone mad if he didn't. From Bastogne through the Bois Jacques; Foy, Noville and Rachamps whenever they could snatch sleep (that night in the convent he'd wrapped himself in his blanket and, butted up against Babe Heffron, he felt the numinous peace of the chapel permeate him and his dreams had been, for just the once, passing lovely), on to Haguenau and through into the Bavarian Alps, every night he dreamt of her.

He still had a scrap of her headscarf that he carried with him everywhere. Most of it had been sacrificed to the war just as she had been; the distinctive blue stained black with blood and dirt and all the filth of humanity until it was dropped by the wayside, the detritus of war. He couldn't mourn its passing as he felt he couldn't mourn hers, but he kept that tiny scrap helplessly, a narrow strip bound around his wrist and tucked up under his sleeve to keep the war from touching it as it had touched her, him, them both.

It was strange, but he knew Babe Heffron had never wondered where the bandage that had bound up his hand in the foxholes of Bastogne had come from. By that stage they'd all been using anything they could get their hands as wrappings; when she'd given him torn up bed sheets that first trip to Bastogne he'd been alarmed – scared, even – at the sheer lack of resources that it meant, but necessity had compelled them both. Beggars couldn't be choosers. No, Babe had never asked about the pretty blue bandage. And he couldn't tell whether he was angry or glad of that.

No one ever saw his precious remnant of her, snug around his wrist. None of them knew her, not really. Not like he did. He didn't want anyone to see that scrap of headscarf and know, or think they knew. She was all his now, since the collapsed rubble of the Bastogne church-come-aid station. His and only his and no one could take her away from him. He could be greedy now.

In the beautiful Alps at Berchtesgaden and Hitler's Berghof and Eagle's Nest the war ended for Easy Company and the 101st not with a bang but with a whimper. Germany had been cowed under the Allies and it was then on to Austria, but as a force of occupation, not invaders. Then news came through that the war in the Pacific against the Japs had ended with a bang. A new invention, they said, a new terrible kind of bomb, one that could kill a tens of thousands people in one go. Maybe even a hundred thousand. He'd been troubled by that thought and he knew she would have been too. That was a comfort to him, even as they prepared to go home.

But her war hadn't ended. And she would never go home.

She was probably still there in Bastogne, buried alongside the men she'd torn strips off her soul (like the bed sheets she'd stripped and ripped into bandages) to care for, under the cold ash and rack and ruin he didn’t need to close his eyes to see. For her the war would, could, never end. She'd died without any hope for peace, without any relief. But – and he is so, so sure of this – he knew she would have continued to the bitter end.

Staring up at the green Austrian treetops and the blue Austrian sky and the unravelling bandage of clouds that stretched from horizon to Austrian horizon, he tried not to think of how he never really got to touch her skin or feel her hand in his. It was hard, because sometimes he'd remember how gently she'd stroked Skinny Sisk's forehead, and then remember how _they_ had only touched through the blood of a dying man.

He knew nothing of her, but he clung to those things he did know. He didn't know how long her hair was, but he knew the scent of it, clinging to the blue scrap of material he'd pulled from the ruins of the aid station, smoke and dirt unable to completely chase away the faint sweet scent. He didn't know her last name, but he knew she loved chocolate, good chocolate, not that poor stuff they got in their K rations, barely able to scrape by under the name but for its brown colour and negligible cocoa content. He closed his eyes and imagined what her expression would be when he gave her his K ration chocolate; the crinkle of her eyes in amusement and the way she would have rummaged around in her greatcoat pockets and pulled out her own chocolate with her hands stained by iodine and the blood and filth that never washed out.

It was under his own nails too, in the creases in his fingers. Sometimes he'd thought he would have blood on his hands until the day he died. And now that the war was over for everyone those blood stains were going to be there for years. Blood of dead and dying men and but for the fraying strip of blue it was his last link to her. Against the canvas of his eyelids his stained fingers wrapped around her own, the way he'd wanted to but never dared during that one moment when she'd denied her true gifts and compassions.

He would touch her hand and she would smile at him, and for a brief second when their eyes met everything would be all right in the world. It was getting easier to imagine her doing things he'd never seen, but harder to remember her face.

What was the last thing he'd said to her? He couldn't remember. He remembered hers, though. Her last words to him had been his name and that genuine concern she would never hide. He'd seen in her eyes that she cared for him, that she cared maybe too much, more than a nurse should for a medic, and she'd looked too young silhouetted and haloed by the incoming light. What had he done? Nothing, he'd only been able to stare at her with dumb confusion as she walked away. Was called away from him. He hadn't known it then, of course, couldn't have known it. But what would he have done if he could have known her future? What could he have done? Tried to take her away from it? Saved at least one goddamn life in this godforsaken war?

He was a soldier, a paratrooper; he couldn't have taken her away even if he'd wanted to. Even if she'd wanted to go, and he knew she wouldn't have. She may have damned god for her gifted hands and the comfort she could give the sick, the lame and the dying, but she knew where her place was.

She had volunteered for this, just like him.

'Gene?'

Babe Heffron stood over him, and he had to squint when he opened his eyes, the bright sunlight surgical sharp. He fingered the material one last moment before tucking it back up his sleeve and safely out of sight.

'C'mon,' Heffron said, 'c'mon, we're going now.'


End file.
